Music4M.com - The Answer interview

Recently crowned Best New Band at the Classic Rock Awards, Downpatrick quartet The Answer have plenty to smile about. Their debut EP Keep Believin' was released to near unanimous critical acclaim and although ineligible for the official Top 40, reached number 12 in the Rock Chart and number 30 in the Indie Chart based on 7” sales alone. Now embarking on the Nokia New School of Rock Tour Music4M’s Michelle Annable caught up with vocalist Cormac Neeson at the newly opened Carling Academy Newcastle.

The Answer’s anthemic brand of classic bluesy rock and sing along choruses is incredibly infectious. Yet with a very twentieth century twist in with the mix you’d be hard pushed to stick these boys into your retro rock pigeonhole. The use of samples has enabled the band to bring something new to the table.
“It’s not a rule that we dabble with samples or anything” says Neeson. “I don’t particularly believe in sticking to a formula. The sample on Keep Believin’ for example came about by accident. We were messing about with this sampler that Paul had got for Chrsitmas one year. This sample came out and I thought, you know that’s not bad, we’ll fuck about with that and see what we can do with it. Keep Believin’ was the result. That’s just an example of keeping an open mind and not dismissing something like a sample because it’s not what Led Zeppelin would’ve done or whatever. If it works for you then it works for you.”
Having just heard the band sound check the thing that immediately struck me about the band was not the use of samples, when they do use a sample it blends seamlessly into the prevailing guitar sound and creates a very fresh sound, but Neeson’s incredible voice. It’s a heady mix of power, gravel and soul that is not dissimilar to Robert Plant.
“Do you think so?” grins Neeson. “We get that a lot like. Hopefully most of the time it’s used as a compliment rather than a criticism you know? I listen to a lot of Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant and Paul Rogers are my favourite singers so maybe that’s been an influence. I think it’s just the way that I sing. Obviously, I’m going to sing in a style that suits my voice and it just happens that that’s what it sounds like.”
Given that Neeson is such a huge fan of Paul Rogers I’m keen to find out what he makes of the curious Queen/Rogers collaboration earlier this year.
“Well, I’m a big fan of Queen and a big fan of Paul Rogers so I think it was great. I saw them play twice together, once in Belfast and then a second time when our manager got us on the guest list for the big show they did in Hyde Park. I think it was good, although the set list could’ve been better given the amount of Queen and Free songs they had at their disposal. You’d expect to hear a few more of the classics whereas they picked a few of the more obscure ones but, I’ll let them off with that!” (laughs).
The New School of Rock Tour is barely two days old when we meet Neeson but he’s already getting well into the swing of things.
“It’s going great yeah, it’s good fun. This is our first experience of doing a tour this size. Most of our tours so far have been like, a fortnight of support slots with other bands but this one’s a month so it’s a lot longer. To be on the road with the same two bands, the same group of people . . . it’s a lot like Groundhog Day some days. You arrive at another fucking Barfly venue or whatever with the same smell of stale beer and the same rock chick behind the bar . . . it all becomes the same. We’ve been getting into the swing of it lately though. Exeter was the first gig which went well. We got up there and played a good gig and then went and had a laugh with the other two bands and it broke the ice so to speak. It’s been plain sailing so far really, no disasters yet.”
There must be plenty of rock ‘n’ roll debauchery along the way though I reason. I mean, three bands of young lads on the road together, there can’t possibly not be can there?
“There’s been a bit, aye, but I’d rather not incriminate any of my fellow band members at this point you know? I’m a good boy myself. I keep my slate nice and clean. I’m in bed every night by twelve, honest! It’s been good fun so far but, I’ll wait until we’ve sold a few more records before I put the boys in the shit. It’s just your usual drunken debauchery but we’ll let the stories filter out through other means than myself.”
When questioned on the origins of the band Neeson warns me to expect a long story and he’s not wrong. As it turns out the band came perilously close to never being formed at all.
“I was actually singing in a blues bar in New York about five summers ago and I got a letter from James and Paul, our guitarist and bassist. I’d never met them before and hadn’t a clue who they were but here was this letter saying they were starting a band, they’d heard I was a good singer and asking if I fancied coming home and joining them. I’d been having thoughts about going home at the end of the summer anyway and enrolling in University at Queens so that settled it for me; I would go home and join this band. I got back a couple of weeks before uni started and waited for this phone call from the boys but it didn’t come. I was thinking ‘You wee bastards! I could still be in New York enjoying myself and all that’. So I ended up starting this degree called Ethnic Musicology. On the first morning they handed out all these weird and wonderful instruments from all around the world as a ground breaker for everyone to get to know each other, you know? Anyway, they handed me this weird Brazilian guitar thing to play. Now, I can’t fucking play guitar so I was shitting myself thinking I was going to make a dick of myself in front of the whole class on the first day. So, I turned to the guy sitting next to me and I says ‘You don’t play guitar by any chance do you?’ and he was like, ‘Aye, I do as it happens’. So then I go ‘Right, give me that tambourine you’ve got there and you can take this wee piece of shit and play it’. Then at the end of the class he goes ‘Are you Cormac Neeson? I’m Paul, one of the boys that sent you that letter in New York’. I was like, ‘Oh are you now? Well thanks for fucking phoning me you wee bastard!’ From there on in we hit it off and organised a practice for that Saturday.”
The Answer have taken the traditional route to rock stardom having gigged all around Ireland over the past five years.
“We were doing gigs in Ireland for years and years and years before we got signed” admits Neeson. “We played all around the country for about three and a half years from the band getting started to our manager contacting us out of the blue one day saying that he’d heard our demo and really liked our stuff and was going to come and see us in Belfast the next Thursday. At that point we’d been getting to the stage where we were like, ‘How are we going to get out of here? How are we going to get over to London?’ It’s really hard for a band to get out of Northern Ireland. They can get over to London and maybe get a gig or two but to get industry people down there takes time. To get four guys and all their gear over to London costs a lot of money you know? Then Dave Bradford our manager contacted us out of the blue as I said and within a fortnight he had a week of industry showcase gigs lined up for us in London. It was like a dream come true.”
The band could have easily been tempted by the lure of major label contracts but instead chose to wait it out until the right deal for them came along.
“We just took it one step at a time. You get over the showcase gigs and then you’ve got a couple of months of negotiations and offers. Finally around Christmas time we got signed. A couple of major labels were interested in us. Sony were interested and a couple of others. Then Albert, the label we went with, approached us and just basically set it out straight that they were a rock and roll label and that they weren’t looking for just one hit single but something more long term, looking at three or four albums down the line. To add to that the head of the label is from our home town which made it all kind of fall into place.”
It sounds like a bit of an omen which gets me on to wondering how much the band believe in all that supernatural stuff.
“I do believe in that kind of thing, aye” nods Neeson. “I think that every single thing in this life happens for reason, I really do. I know that’s getting a bit deep like. In my life there’s been a few disasters and a few fucking near miracles as well and it all kind of balances out you know? There’s a knock on effect and one thing leads to another. One minute we’re sat in Belfast thinking that we’ve given this all that we can and the next thing we get the phone call, the manager, the gigs, the label interest . . . So aye, there’s definitely something out there, a weird fucking force at work. Hopefully it’ll take us on to sell a few records (laughs). Although I could be eating my words six months down the line. Who knows?”
Following the success of The Darkness it does seem as though every A&R guy worth his salt is looking to cash in on it by signing their own classic rock band. It makes you wonder if there’s room for everyone. When I put the question to Neeson he’s not sure that there is.
“There’s never room for everyone. Although there is definitely room for every quality rock band that I’ve encountered on our travels but there aren’t many of them to be honest. I’m not going to name names but there are a lot of manufactured rock bands around at the moment. There’s a lot of bands that have got to where they are largely off the back of hype that the record label have created around them rather than the music. I think the success of The Darkness has been a really good thing for music despite all the slagging that they get. What you have to remember is that it’s all very tongue in cheek, almost Spinal Tap-esque humour. They don’t take themselves too seriously. What they’ve done for bands like us is that they’ve made the guitar solo popular again. If you’re a hard working, decent, good rock and roll band that knows their shit, knows where they’re coming from then . . . there’s more than enough room for bands like that. But like I say there’s not many of them around so they’re not going to take up an awful lot of space!” (laughs)

There may not be many of them around but The Answer are definitely one of them.